Untangle Your Network

While investigating spyware and virus blocking options for Open Source customers, I discovered the Untangle product, from untangle.com. Untangle’s Open Source Network Gateway is a combination of OSS projects, custom Untangle scanning engines and lots of enhancements to the interfaces to the products. While a commercial company, they have a OSS version that’s to download and evaluate, and if you want a throat to choke, there is the Professional option, which includes support, directory support, policy management etc.

Untangle is intended to be a lower or no-cost alternative to SonicWALL and/or Watchguard, and looking at the product and site, they have attracted quite a community of users and developers, so keep an eye on them, maybe they’ll get bought by someone with deep pockets and really take off.

Untangle includes the following products:

Virus/Spyware Blockers – ClamAV and Global Hauri

Web Filter – Untangle scanning engine + URLBlacklist.com

Protocol Control – Untangle scanning engine + Layer 7 Netfilters

SPAM Blocker – Customized SpamAssassin with additional rules

Phish Blocker – ClamAV + phish signature databases

Intrusion Detection – Untangle scanning engine + Snort signatures

Attack Blocker – Proprietary Untangle DDOS and DOS application

Firewall – Proprietary Untangle rules-based firewall application

Remote Access Portal – Local LDAP and tun/tap servers + rules and SSL

OpenVPN – OpenVPN + tools to configure access

Custom Reports – Various OSS and Untangle custom components

Router – Uses OSS router code and Untangle enhancements

You can download a copy of the Untangle OSS version without any registration or delay, or you can visit the Untangle site, the Untangle Wiki or their Forums for more information. Also check out their pre-configured VMWare appliance, modesty and being a XEN guy prohibits me from just linking to it, but it’s hard to miss it on the Wiki site.

I’m running it now in a VM to see how well it works for my purposes, let me know if you try this product, and your experiences.